What do you do when a president is crazy? That’s essentially the question Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, faced in the twilight days of the Trump administration. His answer, as reported by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa in the

As I watched Simone Biles and three other U.S. Olympic gymnasts tell a Senate committee of how badly their complaints of sexual abuse had been handled by the FBI, I was reminded of the day Biles abruptly withdrew from her event at this summer’s Tokyo

Most Americans are turning toward the vaccine, not away from it. President Joe Biden has the wind of facts at his back. This, despite boastful voices claiming otherwise. "To the gates of hell," was the fire-breathing promise of Gov. Henry McMaster of

The lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II wrote many beautiful songs for Broadway musicals. One that was not beautiful, but powerful for what it said about race relations in 1949 when the show opened was “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught.” The song was abou

A recent New York Times op-ed was perhaps the strangest, most awkward and tentative defense of the military-industrial complex — excuse me, the experiment in democracy called America — I’ve ever encountered, and begs to be addressed. The writer, Andr

“He wears the clothes of a dissenter, but there’s a logo on his back.” — from “Damn It, Rose,” by Don Henley. When he died, Martin Luther King was likely the most hated man in America. This is a fact obscured by decades of veneration so intense that

Maybe President Biden should handle COVID-19 the way he’s handled Afghanistan. It’s a strange thought, given how badly he botched the U.S. withdrawal. But at least Afghanistan Joe had a clear idea about what we needed to do. COVID Joe has no such exi

Responding to Democrats in her party who are troubled by the massive $3.5 trillion spending bill that would forever transform America into a debtor nation, Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked a question: “Where would you cut?” Her question carries with it a

Most Americans are turning toward the vaccine, not away from it. President Joe Biden has the wind of facts at his back. This, despite boastful voices claiming otherwise. “To the gates of hell,” was the fire-breathing promise of Gov. Henry McMaster of

I appreciate constructive criticism, even when I think the critic is full of prunes. But that fortunately was not the case in an email I received from a reader in the past week as U.S. Capitol police in Washington braced themselves for a rally to pro

Robert E. Lee has retreated from Richmond. Again. The first time, you will recall, was in April of 1865, when he and his tattered army abandoned the city, fleeing east before finally surrendering at Appomattox Courthouse to federal forces commanded b

As I recall the horrors of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, I want to express my forgiveness of Karlheinz Stockhausen, a noted German composer who, at that tragic time two decades ago, should have stuck to music. Stockhausen suddenly became infamous a

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who is so eager to run for president in 2024 that he can taste it, last week signed into law the nation’s most restrictive anti-abortion law, which, in effect, means that Roe v. Wade no longer applies in Texas. It is both

For 20 years since Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. presidents have been saying their anti-terrorism policies have worked, as evidenced by no new attacks on America. While we should be grateful another attack hasn’t occurred, past performance is no guarantee of

We pretend to have enemies, but mostly what we “have” are people whose lives simply don’t matter. And then we kill them, either directly — via airstrikes or other war games, turning them into collateral damage — or indirectly . . . by simply failing

As much as they try, soldiers returning home from combat don’t always manage to leave the war behind on the battlefield. That’s why, as the Taliban militia rolled with surprising ease into Afghanistan’s capital on Aug. 15 and took over the government

I got back to the U.S. from my honeymoon on Sept. 10, 2001. My wife went straight home to Washington, D.C, to start her new job at the Justice Department. I went to Washington state, where we’d gotten married, to retrieve our dog Cosmo, whom we’d lef

It was a day that did not end. It went on for days, it went on for weeks, it went on for years. But then you look up and somehow, 20 years have gone, and you realize with a start that you can’t recall the last time you thought of September 11, 2001.

In the matter of a new Texas law banning abortions six weeks after gestation, when a fetal heartbeat can usually be detected by vaginal ultrasound, suppose the headlines had been different? Instead of words like “most restrictive in nation” (The Wall

Can we first just say how bizarre it is? Yes, it’s invasive, and hypocritical, too, and we’ll get to that soon enough. But first, let us spare a moment for how purely, intensely and prodigiously strange it is. As you’ve likely heard, Texas’ new anti-

It didn’t take much longer than a nanosecond after the Supreme Court allowed a radical Texas anti-abortion law to take effect before the social media hashtag TexanTaliban went viral. What? Comparisons to the brutal, misogynistic Taliban? That’s more

Ed Asner’s earliest memories were of the scorching Kansas summer sun. And packing house workers, Depression era people who’d emerge onto dusty streets, their white work coats splattered with the blood of the animals they labored over. My paternal gra

“Ten members of one family — including seven children — are dead after a U.S. drone strike targeting a vehicle in a residential neighborhood of Kabul . . . “The youngest victims of Sunday’s airstrike were two 2-year-old girls, according to family mem

There once were summertimes when the living was easy, as the song from the Broadway musical “Porgy and Bess” melodically reminds us. But not this summer, not with COVID-19 still spreading dangerously across the land and uncertainty over what happens

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I entertained bad thoughts about other people. Not only that, I wished bad things would happen to them, and rejoiced when it did. I know it’s wrong, but I can’t help myself. No doubt, you’ve heard about some of th

It’s been five years since I first speculated in this space about the end of American democracy. In doing so, I felt like a man climbing out on an especially creaky limb. But as hyperpartisanship rose to ever more bizarre extremes, as the misinformat

In a major victory for constitutional norms, the Supreme Court overturned a lawless and essentially authoritarian policy of the Trump administration, and progressives are furious. You read that right. Let’s catch up. On March 27, 2020, Congress passe

Watching the last American military plane go wheels up and out of the Afghanistan War reminded me of an old saying: History often repeats itself, but a lot of us would rather not pay attention. On July 8, when President Joe Biden was defending his de

In his address to Congress on Dec. 8, 1941, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt said: “... we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall neve

One thing should be clear about our 20 years in Afghanistan and any war — in-country help is critical. Locals become interpreters and guides, people who forge connections for our military and literally aid us during any number of dangerous scenarios.